Dear Mycroft
by Juliana Brandagamba
Summary: [ONESHOT] An unusually effusive and emotional letter from Sherlock to his brother that might have been written a little too late.


**AN: Really hope you enjoy this. It's not really my usual style, more an experiment in a subject and style slightly outside of my comfort zone. I hope my characterisation isn't too far out, and I apologise if there are any mistakes. Please do let me know what you think!**

* * *

My dear Mycroft...

You probably know that John's old friend Mike Stamford passed away a couple of months back, and John always regretted the "things he never said": the words he wished had passed between them, the sentiments he would never express to his lost friend. I cannot pretend not to understand this. There are things I wish I'd said to... too many people, too many to count. I've lost so many people. Friends, enemies, those in between...

But you, my brother, you are different. You know already, I expect, the things I never said, the things I knew, the things I thought about you, whether good or bad, those things that my face betrayed though I tried to hide my feelings.

I know, for example, that it was you who persuaded the third-years to give me an apple-pie bed on my first day at prep school. I know that it was you who told Mr Buckingham that I had been smuggling things out of the Chemistry lab. I know that it was you who borrowed half my games kit that time my year did cross-country in the snow, and then you said afterwards that it would "turn me into a man" or something, whilst I was in the san. with suspected pneumonia. But I know that it was you who made sure I was never truly bullied at school, that it was you who "dealt with" George that time he called me a freak, that it was you who worked out who was repeatedly stealing my pocket-money. (Though I had worked it out myself, I just hadn't the confidence to confront the culprit...)

I know that you told Mummy I wasn't working hard enough at Oxford, that I spent most of my time deducing things and reading anything other than Chemistry. That she was so proud of you because you got a First, and I didn't, and that was because I didn't bother to put in the effort. I too was proud of you when you got your first class honours. I know it didn't appear that way because I was so jealous at the time, but truly, Mycroft, you did well in life, and I have always admired you as well as envied you. Though it might not have always appeared that way on the surface.

I know that on more than one occasion you offered to pay John to spy on me, to carry on our catty childhood arguments in the pretence of concern for me. Yet you _were_ concerned for me, even if you did have a strange way of showing it. If I had only shown my own concern for you, if I had voiced the words which will now ever remain unspoken...

It is because of you that a good many important cases have been solved. Your help has been invaluable, your knowledge and skills inestimable in those cases that have stumped me, those crimes that have been beyond my power to solve. You aided me reluctantly, lazily, but never half-heartedly, and yet I never had chance to thank you.

I never thanked you, did I, for what you did after what John calls the Fall. Keeping my secret was one thing – though keeping secrets has never been a weakness of yours – but rescuing me when I got myself into a dead end, saving me from Serbia... you will never know how relieved, even pleased, I was to see your face; I considered the deed unexpected, brave, almost touching... and I never even had the grace to thank you properly. Nor did I thank you when you made sure my sentence was lenient after a certain murder I committed. Because you alone understood me, you alone knew what was required in such a situation.

We are brothers; I suppose that explains a lot. From the beginning there was rivalry; we never liked each other. What should have been interpreted as deep affection was mistaken for some sort of pain, a mutual dislike, a distancing from each other. We were different, and we were not afraid to show that. Yet deep down... I hope you felt it, because it embarrasses me to admit that, deep down (very deep down), I loved you, Mycroft, like a brother should, perhaps even more than that. Because you have, in truth, always tried to be there for me in your own special Mycroft way, though it has never been remotely easy. And I hope you understand that I was always there for you, no matter what it might have looked like on the outside. John understands these things better than I do; I think he comprehends you and me. We are brothers; we are close despite the distance between us. I'm sorry; that doesn't make sense. I don't like trying to put this sort of thing into words. We are similar in that respect. And I realise that that is most likely the reason why none of this has ever been said.

I do not need to write this. It is merely an outpouring of things you know already. It is an outpouring, straight from my heart (because I have one, it is just very hard to find sometimes), I assure you, of those things I wish I had said, those things that I will never get a chance to say. I do not like writing this. It makes me feel vulnerable somehow, not myself. It is hard to write when you ache so much from a pain you cannot locate, nor hope to cure.

I suppose my greatest regret is that you will probably never read this letter. But you know its contents already. I just hope you will forgive me for leaving those things unspoken that I perhaps ought to have said. But we are brothers, after all...

If by some miracle you are reading these words, firstly, know that I want to thank you for everything, and that I deeply regret never having said so. And secondly, tell our parents that I love them, and always did love them, unconditionally; give Redbeard a hug from me; and know that I will ever remain

Your beloved brother,

 _Sherlock Holmes._

* * *

And the heavens opened, and rain, like pent-up teardrops, began to trickle down the letter. The page fell reluctantly from a dark sleeve, and came to rest by the forbidding black marble; and the shadow of a man flitted from the graveyard, never daring to turn back.


End file.
